Response to Andrew

In response to Andrew - full post here

Well, I think that this sort of augmented human is very close in the future. I think that sooner, rather than later, prosthetic limbs and other artificial body parts will be available more readily.

I also think that this is very likely to cause a bad situation. I think it is vital that we move towards socialism before that sort of crazy unfairness settles in. If it did, the middle and poor classes would be at a distinct disadvantage, given that they won't have the same abilities and potential as the more technologically augmented humans. Society needs to change before technology reaches a certain point on the horizon. If society does not change, the world and its people will be in a really bad place. I think the situation is more precarious than many people give it credit for.

How could we use technology in conjunction with socialism to liberate people from the need to work?

Technology, I think, could be very used useful in the effort to liberate people from work. We could certain use more technology now in order to prevent people from having to do certain jobs that nobody would want to do. Clean toilets and basic janitorial work could certainly be done by robots. As technology increases, I think, robots will be able to complete more jobs. With socialism, people don't have to worry about losing their jobs to robots because they will still receive all the necessities of life until they are able to contribute to society in a different way. I think that if Karl Marx were alive today, he likely would have supported this idea of using technology to our advantage.

The In-Between Point

There are many problems with capitalism and I used to think that capitalism was the bane of human existence. I have since come around to see ourselves in a position that closely resembles a half-way point between good and bad. It seems much worse that systems of the past because our ability to cause harm to ourselves is greater than it was before. There are many more negative aspects of our society than there were before, it seems reasonable to want to go back to a safer time when we valued different traditions. Capitalism, it seems, is responsible for motivating people to go to war and to create nuclear bombs and guns, and the nature of capitalism combined with industrialism has created an environmental mess which past society would have never considered. There are ways to improve ourselves and we ought to embrace that, we cannot stand idly by because we are aware that there are negatives in capitalism. This is not a place to rest, we have to move forward; we must strive for a better society. As with progress away from the previous stages of human history, we can certainly get rid of many of the problems that we have now. Diseases used to run rampant, and they no longer do. The streets used to stink, they no longer do. Transportation used to leave the majority of travellers dead, that is no longer the case. We can usually address most of our problems as we progress.

How does the American Public Education system portray Karl Marx?

I think that overall, the American public education system portrays Karl Marx in a very negative light. They portray his ideas is the same negative light. The history books used in public schools try to suggest that Russian and China, after having adopted the titles of socialist and communist tried to practice, and succeeded at practising communism. The American media portrays dictatorship (a failed attempt (if it could even be called an attempt) at communism) as successful communism. This is completely untrue and is highly unfair to those who support socialism. In addition to having confused socialism or communism with dictatorship, the American media also portrays socialism as the equivalent to communism. Of course, I cannot simply blame the American media, it is, after all, up to the people to decide what they believe and to research information on their own.